Fresh Air interviews are recorded in a private studio between only the interviewee(s) and the host, giving the feeling of an intimate, conversational setting.

Terry: This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. The Showtime series, "The L Word," concludes its first season on Sunday. It's the first TV series to focus on a group of lesbians and their friends and lovers. The series was recently renewed for a second season. My guests are Ilene Chaiken, the creator of "The L Word," and Jennifer Beals, one of the stars. Beals' movies include "Flashdance," "Devil in a Blue Dress," "Rodger Dodger," and "Runaway Jury."

"The L Word" has been somewhat controversial because of its sexual content, but largely, it's about relationships and some of the issues facing lesbians today. Jennifer Beals plays Bette, a museum director. Early in the series, she and her partner, Tina, agree to have a baby. Then, Tina tried to get pregnant with the help of a sperm donor. So, they searched for just the right man. Bette, who is from a mixed-race family, found an African-American artist who is willing to be the donor, but she didn't mention to Tina, who is white, that he is black. So, Tina was surprised and confused when she met him. Here she is, with Bette, after that meeting:

[Scene from 1x01 The Pilot. Bette meets Tina at The Planet to talk.]

Tina: You put me in a [bleeped "fucking"] awkward position. How could you not tell me that Marcus Allenwood is black?

Bette: God, I - I... I don't know, I guess I - I should've, I... I just didn't think it would be a problem for you to use a black donor.

Tina: But... I didn't say I didn't want a black donor. I just think we should've discussed it.

Bette: We absolutely discussed it, Tina. Right in the very beginning, we said that if you were going to be the birth mother, that we should consider finding an African-American donor, that way the child would be more like our child.

Tina: But I wasn't prepared.

[Bette's voice falters as she speaks, upset.]

Bette: I don't understand. Other than... being committed... to spending the rest of your life with me... what more do you need to do to prepare?

Tina: Look at me, Bette. I don't feel qualified to be the mother of a child who's half African-American. I don't know what it means to be black.

Bette: (crying) I think I can make a contribution in that department.

Tina: And don't you think, on top of everything else, to also have two moms... that is a lot of otherness to put on one child.

[Scene ends.]

Jennifer: One of the things this series does, is it serves to represent people who don't often see themselves represented, and certainly not represented in a multiplicity. And I thought, for myself, growing up, there weren't very many images, certainly none of them positive, for me to see on television of people of mixed race. And I thought, I - it was something that I wanted to give to someone else.

Terry: Had you played someone of mixed race before?

Jennifer: Oh, yes. But it's always sort of the tragic mulatto character.

Terry: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer: Which is not unlike the tragic homosexual character. You know, the person who is, uh, historically, uh, wrought with sexual perversion and ultimately, you know, their lives lead only to suicide. That's really sort of the - the original model.

Terry: I'm interested in the timing of the series. You wouldn't have known that this would happen, but "The L Word" has had its debut season in the same period that the whole issue of gay marriage has just, uh, become, you know, front page news and it's in the courts - it's - the President's talking about a Constitutional amendment... did you have any idea that, um, coinciding with the first, you know, lesbian TV series like this that's about a group of lesbian characters, that gay issues would be in the news in quite the way they are?

Ilene: Certainly not when I began. I began developing this something like 4 years ago. It seems to me that there really is such a thing as a Zeitgeist. That it all came about in one big moment in which all of these issues conflated has been intriguing, in some ways, um, lucky for us because it focused even more attention on our show. When I began developing it, it still seemed like a risky, outside proposition.

[Jennifer chuckles.]

Terry: The main characters on "The L Word" are, without exception, quite attractive, and I wonder if you've been criticized for that, Ilene Chaiken, in the sense that - I know, like, the sensible-shoes, flannel-shirt lesbian is a stereotype, but on the other hand it's kind of undeniable that a lot of lesbian women aren't exactly fashion plates and aren't glamorous and, you know, have kind of perfect figures and everything, just as, like, most straight women aren't that glamorous or have perfect figures, either.

Jennifer: Like the women on "Sex and the City"?

Ilene: Well -

Terry: Right, exactly, exactly.

Ilene: That's -

Terry: Right, most straight women don't look like "Sex and the City", but nevertheless. I wonder if you've gotten flack from any lesbian women for not representing lesbian women who aren't, you know, gorgeous.

Ilene: Everything that you can imagine might have been said, has been said.

Terry: Right.

[Terri and Jennifer chuckle.]

Ilene: So, yes. Yes, I've gotten some flack and at the same time, so many people have come forward and said how fabulous it is to be represented by beautiful women, or have commented that not everybody looks like the characters on "Friends," either. On television, we tend to cast people who are just a little bit better-looking than people we encounter in our day-to-day lives, but I think of these characters as very, very real.

Jennifer: Do you think there'll be a feature episode where Bette finds a softball in her closet?

[Jennifer and Ilene chuckle.]

Ilene: I think Bette's got a few flannel shirts hidden away.

Jennifer: (laughing) I think she does, too.

[Terry laughs.]

Terry: You know, I interviewed the writer Ann Bannon, who wrote one of the - a few of the lesbian pulp novels of the '50s, and she was saying that, you know, in that era, the covers of those lesbian pulps were for men. The idea was that the lesbian women would buy the books because there really was no other lesbian fiction, and they were really hungry for it, but the men would buy these pulps because, hey, there's two, like, sexy chicks on the cover, and men get turned on, so men get turned on by the idea of two women having sex with each other. So, I wonder if that's something, Ilene, that you've thought about at all in how the series would be perceived?

Ilene: I certainly thought about it in terms of how the series would be perceived. I didn't think about it in terms of how I put forward the stories I was telling. I think that those Ann Bannon books are a genre unto themselves, whereas I always recognized that, possibly - in fact, most likely - some straight men would come to the show because they found the idea of women together to be sexy, and that there would be a larger perception about that than the actual phenomenon itself. It isn't something I thought about, when writing the stories. I didn't think, "Oh, I have to do that in order to appeal to those men." I didn't think, "Oh, I mustn't do that because I don't want to, you know, stir up the wrong excitement."

Terry: Jennifer, a lot of actors and actresses say that they really hate doing the love scenes, it's the most uncomfortable part of doing a movie. Is it any more uncomfortable when the sex scene is of a sexual orientation that you're not? Does that matter in terms of the comfort level?

Jennifer: Well, it's interesting because, at first, I didn't really consider the love scenes when I took the part and when I was researching the part. I was much more obsessed by the work that Bette did, because she was so obsessed by the work that she did. So -

Terry: As a museum director, uh-huh.

Jennifer: As a museum director. So, I was busy researching what it takes to run a museum, and then along came this love scene that I had to shoot -

[Terry laughs.]

Jennifer: - in about a week or so. And (laughs) I thought, "Okay, how do I do this?" And - and then I just started breaking it down as an actor. You know, not all love scenes are about love. I mean, sometimes they're about intimidation, sometimes they're about possession, sometimes they're about fear, and I realized that this scene was about Bette and Tina reconnecting, uh, after having a difficult period of time together. And, when I broke it down that way, there was a scene to play, and, uh, every single thing, every single movement in the scene was choreographed to the point where, in the middle of the scene, Laurel Holloman who plays Tina just started laughing. She said, "I feel like Fred Astaire." And I'll tell you one thing. In some ways it's easier to have a love scene with a woman because there are parts of your body that you are certainly less than thrilled with. At least, there are parts of my body that I am certainly less than thrilled with. And, if I ask my scene partner to put their hand in a certain place to disguise something - men generally forget in the heat of the moment, whereas a woman knows what that means.

[Jennifer, Ilene and Terry laugh.]

Terry: That's really interesting.

Jennifer: (laughing) She doesn't move her hand. She doesn't - she knows that there will, one day, be a quid pro quo. So, uh, it's interesting. It's - you know, we do the scene, and we laugh and talk about clothes.

Terry: You said you wanted to do research, you know, about being a museum director. Did you feel any need to do any research about - being a lesbian, in a love scene? Or, is that something that...

Jennifer: Not really -

Terry: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer: I figured I know how to love someone and I know how I'd like to be loved -

Terry: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer: So, I think that was, uh, information enough and... when we were about to start the series, Rose Troche put together a tape of love scenes, both homosexual and heterosexual, that she thought some of them worked and some of them didn't, and she wanted us to look at it and judge for ourselves what worked and why, and what didn't work and why. And we watched the tape as a group - the cast watched the tape together, um, and we really analyzed all these different scenes, and we realized that, at the end of the day, when an actor was fearful, it was so clear, and it so interrupted the storytelling that we all vowed to one another that we would do our best to abandon any kind of fear and sort of dive headlong into these scenes, because otherwise you interrupt the story and that's just... not really forgivable.

Terry: My guests are Ilene Chaiken, the creator of the Showtime series "The L Word," about a group of lesbian friends and lovers, and Jennifer Beals, one of the stars of the series. Let's hear another scene from "The L Word." The central characters are meeting for drinks, as they regularly do, and giving advice to their friend Alice, who they think is being used by her girlfriend. Jennifer Beals' character Bette speaks first.

[Scene from 1x03 Longing. The gang sits around a table at The Planet. Alice is in the midst of complaining about her old girlfriend, Gabby.]

Bette: (to Alice) It has to end.

Tina: But seriously, Alice, you can't let Gabby continue to treat you this way.

Alice: You guys don't know her. I know it looks like she's treating me like shit, but... it's — she's just, y'know —

Dana: Treating you like shit, Al.

Alice: Maybe. It's just —

Bette: No. It's just you deserve better.

Alice: I do? Allright, I do. But... I just feel like at times, she's, like, so right there, and I feel like we connect and then, all of a sudden, she acts like I don't even exist.

Tina: That's because she's an emotional cripple.

Bette: Yeah. Emotional cripple slash narcissistic personality disorder.

Tina: And the next time she calls you? You have to end it.

Alice: I know. It's just —

Bette: It's just nothing.

[Alice laughs.]

Tina: What are you gonna do?

Alice: Well, I was gonna ask her —

Bette: No asking.

Tina: What are you gonna tell her?

[Alice laughs again.]

Tina: You're gonna say, "Gabby, I really enjoy the time we've spent together, but it is obvious to me that we are in different places in our lives and we want different things out of a relationship, and I respect myself too much to let you continue to treat me this way."

Bette: "It's clear to me now that you are an emotional cripple without any kind of capacity to understand true love."

Tina: "And I'm no longer willing to waste my valuable time on you."

Bette: "So step off, bitch!"

[Scene ends.]

Ilene: (chuckles) I laugh about that too, sometimes.

Terry: Do you? Okay. (chuckles) And, you know, Aaron Spelling produced shows like "Fantasy Island," "Love Boat," "Love American Style," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Melrose Place," and they're - they're all so, in the kind of fantasy world, and, um... where did you fit in, in that?

[Jennifer chuckles.]

Ilene: Um, I actually worked for Aaron Spelling for a number of years, but during what I would have to confess was probably the most fallow time in his history as a television producer.

[Terry laughs.]

Ilene: There were no new shows on the air. It was just before "Beverly Hills 90210." Um, I was - the only television show that I was involved in putting together that I actually like to talk about is "Twin Peaks," which was actually Spelling's show, nobody really remembers...

[Jennifer chuckles.]

Ilene: ... that it was distributed by Spelling. But, um, I... I'm sure, I - I know that I learned a great deal from Aaron Spelling. And he was fascinating to work for. I'm sure that I absorbed some lessons from that time. My approach to storytelling certainly isn't modeled after anything that he's - that he does. But I'm sure it seeped into me somehow.

Terry: Were you out at the start of your career in television?

Ilene: Um, unwittingly. My partner and I have been together for 20 years, and we just always went everywhere together and I never made declarations about being a lesbian, but I think it just sort of came to be understood.

Terry: Did it affect your career in any way?

Ilene: I'm sure it did from time to time.

Terry: It's hard to tell, right?

Ilene: It's hard to tell. I know that there are moments when I felt very much on the outside because people were uncomfortable with me because I simply wasn't one of them, but I don't think that I was ever, um, with maybe one small exception, overtly discriminated against for being a lesbian.

Terry: And what was that exception?

Ilene: Um, it was a moment, and I won't get specific about it, but a moment when a very powerful executive and I butted heads over a business issue, and he called me up and threatened to out me.

Jennifer: (chuckling) Oh, my gosh.

Ilene: And I was kind of mystified by it, because I was already out.

[Terry laughs. Ilene and Jennifer chuckle.]

Terry: So, what did you say?

Ilene: Um, I was tongue-tied. I was kind of horrified, and frightened, not because I thought he was going to out me, because that wouldn't have been of any consequence, but just because somebody much bigger and more powerful than me was obviously really angry with me and he was - and he saw fit to threaten me. He took the time to call me on the phone and tell me that he was going to make an issue of my sexuality.

Terry: Did you stay working with him?

Ilene: I had no choice.

Terry: Meaning, he fired you, or meaning, you stayed?

Ilene: No. Meaning - he wasn't in a position to directly fire me.

Terry: Uh-huh.

Ilene: He possibly could've gotten me fired if he had wanted to. Um, but, he didn't fire me, and I had to go on working with him.

Terry: Jennifer Beals, I want to ask you. I know you're probably really tired of talking about "Flashdance," but I'm curious, you know, you started your career right out of high school. Am I right?

Jennifer: Right. That's correct.

Terry: And you get this part in a movie that, like, becomes a phenomenon.

Jennifer: Mm-hmm.

Terry: Um, and then... you kind of leave acting for a while and go to college.

Jennifer: Well, I loved school. It's very simple. I really loved, loved, loved school, and I loved university, and, to me, getting the little blue book to take my tests was really exciting.

Terry: No! (laughs)

Jennifer: I loved it when they handed out the blue books.

Terry: (laughing) I hated those books.

Jennifer: I was very excited. There was a slight terror, but it was overcome by excitement. Um... so I knew that I would go back to college. That was never an issue, and I just - I just knew that I - I loved reading, I loved being in class, I was good at it, and, I think, in some kind of Skinner way, (smiling) I just went to where I was being rewarded most often, and I - so I went back to school, and started working again, I think, my senior year. [says something unintelligible as Terry starts speaking.]

Terry: Well, I think Skinner - Skinner would have noticed that you were rewarded quite well for being in "Flashdance," financially and, you know, all the other materialistic ways. Fame?

Jennifer: Right. But I think that Skinner would have also noted that from the time of junior kindergarten (chuckles) through my freshman year in college, I've been rewarded all that time for academics. So.

Terry: Right.

Jennifer: Um, and there were times in Hollywood where it was very difficult, because I was very shy, and so I was very quiet on the set, and I didn't realize at - I didn't realize at that time that when you're the lead of the movie, you're also the hostess of the party. Nobody told me that, so I spent a lot of time in my trailer and... uh... you know, I was reading "Durkheim's Suicide," I think, at the time (chuckles) because it was just, so... it was very, very lonely. I mean, I loved Adrian Lyne, I loved the script, and a lot of the people I worked with, but for the most part I was really, really shy and really quiet and didn't know anybody. So, school was, uh, truly a haven.

Terry: Ah, uh, how does that shyness affect you now as an actress?

Jennifer: Um... every now and again it comes up. When I'm at parties with other actors, I get very shy. When I meet athletes whom I admire, I get shy. Um... but I - on the set, I'm - it's much easier, you know, it's much easier, because I realize that... all of us are making the film. All of us are making the TV series. It's not just me, it's not just another actor, it's not just the director, um, and I really love the group effort. I love the idea that it takes a village, and, uh, and I love the magic of film. So, I have such high esteem for all of the people that I work with, all of the technicians, all of the other actors that - that it's - it's much easier for me, now.

Terry: Do you like to dance a lot?

Jennifer: Uh... not really.

Terry: Is it - do people assume you do because of "Flashdance"? (chuckles)

Jennifer: Uh... you know what's interesting is that I learn a lot about the person from what film they reference, um, when they meet me.

Terry: Right.

Jennifer: Some people talk about "Flashdance," some people wanna talk about "Devil In a Blue Dress."

Terry: Right.

Jennifer: I had a guy on the subway, not long ago, quoting long passages from "Vampire's Kiss". And, uh, somebody came up to me at the gym, just two days ago, about "Rodger Dodger". So, it's interesting, I think, uh, people have different... images of me from different films.

Terry: You've gotten the green light for a new season of "The L Word". Are you both pleased that, um... that it's gonna continue?

Ilene: I think we're both pretty happy about it. Um. I, speaking for myself, would love to go on telling these stories for some time to come.

Jennifer: Yes, Granny Bette. (chuckles)

[Ilene chuckles. Terry laughs.]

Jennifer: (chuckling) Then maybe we could break out a flannel robe!

Ilene: I wanna keep telling these stories until Bette gets as old as me!

[Jennifer giggles. Terry laughs.]

Terry: Well, I wanna thank you both very much for talking with us.

Ilene: Thank you, it was a pleasure.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Terry: Ilene Chaiken is the creator of the Showtime series "The L Word"; Jennifer Beals plays the character, Bette. This season's finale will be shown on Sunday; "The L Word" has been renewed for another season.

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